page_title: Forest of Dean Railway
section_title: The Bullo Pill Railway Company
hierarchical_section_title: Forest of Dean Railway / The Bullo Pill Railway Company
caption_attribution_description: English: System map of the Forest of Dean Railway, Gloucestershire, England, in 1908
context_page_description: The Forest of Dean Railway was a railway company operating in Gloucestershire, England. It was formed in 1826 when the moribund Bullo Pill Railway and a connected private railway failed, and they were purchased by the new company. At this stage it was a horse-drawn plateway, charging a toll for private hauliers to use it with horse traction. The traffic was chiefly minerals from the Forest of Dean, in the Whimsey and Churchway areas, near modern-day Cinderford, for onward conveyance from Bullo Pill at first, and later by the Great Western Railway.
  When the South Wales Railway was proposed in 1844, the FODR was awarded £15,000 to modernise its line and make a broad gauge edge railway in connection; the FODR was slow to implement this and in 1849 the South Wales Railway purchased the FODR outright, making it a branch of its own network. The line was steeply graded and difficult to work, and it was often congested due to heavy traffic.
  In 1907 passenger traffic was instituted using railmotors, a low-cost means of carrying light passenger traffic, and for some time this was very successful.
context_section_description: Towards the end of 1808 a further bill was prepared to authorise a public railway or tramroad from the summit of the hill above Churchway Engine (north-west of present-day Cinderford) to Cinderford Bridge. This became the Bullo Pill Railway, which was incorporated on 10 June 1809. There were several short branches serving mineral workings.
  On 20 September 1809 a press report announced "the tunnel is completed through Hay-Hill to the Forest of Dean, which is connected with the River Severn, and a channel thus established, by which the valuable productions of the Forest may be brought to market with a feasibility hitherto unknown." The Haie tunnel, at 1,100 yards in length, was one of the earliest to be driven for a railway.
  The Bullo Pill Railway was probably completed soon afterwards. The track was of the L-plate form in which plain wagons wheels could run, guided by the upstand of the L. There are uncertainties about the gauge, but four feet measured between the outer faces of the vertical flanges, is generally assumed.
  The Whimsey branch was built about 1823, and Whimsey later became an important focal point for private tramroads running northwards.
caption: The Forest of Dean Railway network in 1908
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